I joined the marines right out of high school. This was just after the pullout from Afghanistan. I thought I would just be sitting in a barracks for most of my career. But, a month ago, I got deployed somewhere with a desert, probably somewhere in Africa. It didn’t really matter to me. A few hours ago our intel guys had gotten a tip that there was a gathering of insurgents in a nearby town.

It had been five hours since I left HQ with my squad to check out this ‘gathering’ of insurgents. We had been patrolling the same valley village every week, and every week like fucken clockwork, we had gotten ambushed. So most of us were convinced that we were walking into a trap. We were about halfway through when we had come under fire from whatever goddamn insurgent force we were fighting this time.

Every time we went out and got our asses shot at the CO (commanding officer) told our SL (squad leader) some bullshit about keeping the peace or some crap like that. So, when we started taking fire, all of us already had preselected pieces of cover to jump into. My piece of cover, as it turned out, was called 'a crayon eater’s grave' because it already had a five-marine body count. ‘Just my fucken luck,’ I thought as bullets started slamming into the dirt around me.

Another marine jumped in behind me. Just as his boots hit the sand of the ditch. A THUNK sounded in my ear, damn! The unlucky bastard got hit in his helmet. I fired a couple of bursts into the buildings from which I assumed the gunfire was coming from. Then I crouched down to check on my buddy.

The guy had fallen face-first into the ditch. I flipped him over and recognized him as Windshield, a skinny native American man from New Mexico. I quickly scanned his helmet for holes. Thankfully I didn’t spot any, just a big dent on the right side of the helmet. Over the squad radio, the SL was barking orders for everyone to stay down while he called for air support.

Then something unusual happened. A different type of gunshot rang out. It was BRRRRRT or at least something like that, and by the sound of the bullet, it seemed to be of the caliber of ‘mist maker.’

Fuckers got a technical with an AA gun. I dropped to the bottom of the crayon eater’s grave and started praying. The technical opened up, and I could barely think over the sound of auto-cannon fire. Mix that in with a couple of screams over the radio, and it was hellish. When the gun finally went silent, I quickly stuck my eyes over the ridge of my little safety hole. What I saw didn’t lift my spirits any. Anyone on my side of the road that took cover, not in my ditch was now just a pile of meat on the floor.

I couldn’t see the technical anywhere, so I ducked back into the safety hole. But my little peek caused me to be spotted by the technical’s gunner. And rounds the size of Redbull cans exploding the ground all around me. Scared shitless, I was pressing into the ground and Windshield so hard I might have become one with the floor.

Then everything went black.

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I woke up to chirping birds and the light of a soft sun. I was laying on my backpack. I could feel a nice breeze brushing across my skin. I got up and started wandering across hilltops and ridgelines in a daze. I must have been walking for a while. The only thing that woke me from this daze was falling into a river.

As I splashed around, trying to regain my footing, my brain started working again. *Cough cough* “What the fuck?!” was only one of the questions running through my head at that time. climbing to my feet, I take a second to take in the sights with a functioning brain. The stream had bunches of cattails on the sides, with grassy hills on either side. I trudge my way out of the water. Only stopping at the riverside to pour some river rocks out of my boots and put on a fresh pair of socks.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Pro tip if you ever go hiking or ruck marching, always bring socks in a waterproof bag. Because the water in your boot gets dry fast. Soggy socks are soaked for way longer and make moving a pain.

With a fresh pair of socks on my feet, I started scouting my immediate surroundings. I got lucky and find a cave on a hill with a clearing at the top. I think it would make a great helicopter landing zone. Since It was almost night, I couldn’t spend any more time scouting for a better base spot. So I dropped my bag and got to cleaning a patch of the floor as best I could with my boots. I fell asleep propped against the back wall with my finger on the trigger and the safety off.

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I woke up the next morning with a rock digging into my side and a crick in my neck. Thankfully, nothing else woke me up got up and did a quick scan around the cave. Then I tried to reach someone on my radio.

“Anyone out there?”

“Identify yourself,” came a calm and reserved man’s voice.

“Roger, I am Harly Robinson, corporal, service number 82321. Could I get a pickup? I have no idea where the hell I am.”

It took a couple of seconds for him to gather a response.

“Well, I pushed it up the chain of command, and. Well, you're not going to like what they told me. We can't get you out. We can, however, send you a small airdrop out the back of a C130 while we figure out what to do.”

“Got it. Well, do I need to do anything?”

“Yeah, go get the supplies in a couple of hours.”

“Ok, over.”

I waited for more than a few hours to hear the sound of a C130 overhead. When I did, however, it was a beautiful sound. I snatched up my backpack and marched out to follow the now very slowly falling crate of supplies. Along the trip, I saw a lot of scratched-up trees, and trees that looked like they were hit by lightning. You could tell it was lightning because the tree had a hole and ash inside that hole, But no other fire damage.

As I started getting closer to the drop zone, I started to notice that more and more trees had been struck. That’s when I spotted a man dueling a blood-red leopard with what looked like a scythe. I grabbed my rifle from the sling on my chest and flicked the safety off, and took aim. I was ready to jump in and help, but I noticed something else very important while looking through my rifle’s scope. The leopard’s tail was on fire, and it seemed to be shooting fireballs out from its tail. Also, the ‘man’ was wearing a black cloak, and his eyes seemed to be glowing.

So with my urge to help squandered. I tried to be as stealthy as I could by dropping to the ground and trying to put anything in between me and the fight. I watched the fight as I snuck past. The leopard was taking a beating from the cloaked figure’s scythe but was managing to throw a couple of fireballs in here and there.

I am just lucky they didn’t notice me.

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Alexei Volkov was not having a great time. First, he deployed on a ‘training mission,’ and then he was sent to invade Ukraine. Ever since then, his unit had been taking heavy losses. He had been on a morning patrol in a forest with his squad when it happened. A gunshot rang out from his left side, and the man in front of Alexei dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Gun flashes came from all around him, and his ears were filled with the blasts of AKs. The rhythmic sound of any particular rifle’s chatter was blocked out by the sheer amount of gunfire. Alexei had thrown himself onto the ground when the first gunshots rang out. He tried to peek his head up, but as he started raising his head, he blacked out.

He opened his eyes, and his team wasn’t there. His surroundings looked different, the forest wasn’t the same, and the sun was not in the same place, it had fallen lower in the sky. He heard something. What was that noise, and where was it coming from? He looked up and got his answer; a gray plane was screaming across the sky above him.

It seemed to drop supplies and then fly off. Alexei thought about it for a second. ‘Well, what do I have to lose? I’ll go to the supply drop. If it’s friendly, I’ll get to find friends who can help me until I can get back to my unit. If it’s hostile, I’ll get out of this hell, one way or another.’ he thought grimly. Alexei staggered to his feet, still a bit dazed by the ambush